birch syrup

After a quarter annual hiatus from the blog, we are back with some updates and ready to roll out some new blog posts in the next few months as we build towards more changes and additions on the farm. Despite our absence from the blog, we’ve continued to plug away at farming on MacCurdy Farm. Winter has a tendency of recharging the batteries, when sickness is held at bay, and tends to reinvigorate the body. Lots of quality time snowshoeing on our family acreage helped to reinstill a hope in the members of the family to further establish our transitioning farm.

Multi-season farming has been a goal for Jonathan and Justin since they began to pursue their separate farm endeavours. Without abandoning previously established elements of the farm, Jonathan and Justin have decided to put their knowledge sets together to increase productivity on the family farm and partner together in the birch syrup, small fruit, pastured poultry, and greenhouse operations. They’ve both come to the realization that together they can accomplish much more in seasonal aspects of the farm that require man power and brain power. Who better to partner with than a brother or sister?

Warm me up Scottie!

Justin and Jonathan will be tackling birch syrup production beginning in March when the sap starts to run. They’ve set amibitious goals and have made filling last years crowdfunding backers the first priority for this season, with birch syrup for the market and other stores within Canada to follow. We’ll be putting out an informative blog series on everything pertaining to birch syrup production in the coming weeks for those of you interested in trying the product. An informed consumer is more likely to be a satisfied consumer. We have hopes of potentially sharing our knowledge in the school systems in years to come as well. We’ve started to prepare our evaporator, sap collection equipment, and temporary sugar shack for our big boil downs to come. The next few weeks leading up to March Break/Study break will be busy, to say the least.

In other news, Justin and Jonathan have added a wood fired furnace to the greenhouse to get an earlier start in march with herbs, cut flowers, tomato and pepper plants, and some in ground cold hardy plants for the table. In our winter with the greenhouse, we are pleased to announce that we’ll be able to produce a substantial amount of produce, herbs, and flowers. Our goal is to open up the greenhouse as flower shop in the Spring to provide hanging baskets, cut flowers, container herbs, and other floral arrangements. More to come in the coming months.

We will be sharing more about our seasonal adventures on MacCurdy Farm/Nature’s Estate Farm in the near future. We apologize for the hiatus from the blog. Jonathan will hopefully be able to contribute his keen knowledge set on everything pertaining to birch syrup in the following months. Please look for another tab on the website related to birch syrup.

MacCurdy Crest Dartboard Cabinet

Taking care of health and family relations have been a priority for us this past year. Justin has kept busy with teaching school and some small carpentry projects, Jon is constantly studying his craft and mom and dad are busy being busy. Together, they are very excited to tackle birch syrup, small fruit production, market gardening, our cow/calf operation, pastured poultry operation, and greenhouse growing in the Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2016. We are hoping to satisfy the local palates of our devoted customers and locavores. Until we get to see you at the market this Spring, enjoy some of what’s left of Winter in our beautiful region in Northern New Brunswick.

As promised, our first line of t-shirts have arrived. We’ve decided to do a test run of our customized MacCurdy Farm t-shirts with our signature farm logo on the front and our slogan, “Responsibly Stewarded, Naturally Balanced”, on the back. We’ve kept it local as well and used Picaboo Graphik in Point a la Croix, PQ, which is just across the bridge from Campbellton, NB, and only 20 minutes away from the farm. In our first order we have produced white t-shirts only for sale while the colored shirts are for family members and workers at our vendor booth at the Restigouche Farmers Market. However, given enough interest from our supporters, we will most likely get colored shirts for sale on the next batch with a small cost increment. The tees are M & O pre-shrunk cotton. That being said, I have been told, that there could be a very small reduction in size after a wash or two. Having tried them on, they are incredibly comfy and breathe very well.

Any and all money made from the sale of our t-shirts will go directly back into the farm to pay for seeds, materials, feed, etc. We’ve priced our t-shirts to be comparable to the prices you would pay at other small businesses. We’d like to say thank you to those of you who will wear our t-shirts proudly in representation of the local food movement and our small diversifying farm.

T-Shirt Prices

White tee with farmer logo on front $22

Color tee with farmer logo on front and slogan on back $25

Youth sized tee $15

Our little model with the smile

At this point in time we will only have two types available. We are looking into a MacCurdy Farm golf polo and a different tee with a smaller crest above the heart with a different farm related logo. So, if you are looking for a muscle shirt you are out of look. But, these tees, when worn in the hayfield at MacCurdy farm, produce a great set of forearms. Finally, I’ll post pictures of the tees and information about sizes as a new page on the website banner this week.

MacCurdy Farm Tees

As previously posted, Jonathan’s crowd funding project on kickstarter is ongoing with 35% of his goal raised to date and 36 days remaining. If you haven’t already, please take a moment and read about his venture into birch syrup production. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1554230499/birch-please